After his team’s Sugar Bowl loss Thursday, Georgia coach Kirby Smart asserted that an 11-player substitution ploy that Notre Dame used to draw the Bulldogs offside was not within the rules based on information that he had received from the SEC head of officials.
The SEC confirmed to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Friday that it actually was a legal play, as was ruled on the field of the Bulldogs’ 23-10 defeat in New Orleans.
On the fourth-quarter play, Notre Dame lined up for a punt on a fourth-and-1, only for the entire unit to suddenly run off the field and be replaced by the Fighting Irish offense. Georgia countered by returning its defense to the field but jumped offside to give Notre Dame a critical first down.
Smart argued with officials at the time to no avail and later said that “I’ve been told by our head of officials in the SEC that you can’t do that. You can’t run 11 on, 11 off.”
Conference spokesperson Herb Vincent told the AJC that “we didn’t share inaccurate information with our schools about this play.”
In most cases, pulling the entire punt team off the field on a fourth down and sending the offense in actually is illegal, SEC coordinator of football officials John McDaid told the AJC. Those would be situations when there is not a stoppage of play and the 40-second play clock is running. In such a scenario, that would entail the offense leaving the field after third down to be replaced by the punt team for fourth down, only for the punt team to run back off the field.
“That is against the rules,” McDaid said. “Because when a substitute becomes a player and a replaced player goes off, (the substitute) needs to stay on the field unless we have a charged timeout, a penalty or the quarter ends.”
The situation in which Notre Dame attempted it, though, was following an official’s timeout — a stoppage of play such as a charged team timeout, an injury or a score. In this case, it was a replay review of the third-down play. In that case, switching out all 11 players is permissible, McDaid said.
“That play (executed by Notre Dame) is legal, first and foremost because, the fourth-down play, the ball was made ready for play after an official’s timeout,” he said.
Also, if Notre Dame’s long snapper had put his hands on the ball and established himself as the snapper, he could not have gone off the field except for a stoppage of play.
However, “if you go back and look at the play, the snapper for the punt team comes out and just stands over the ball, never puts his hands on the ball,” McDaid said. “So they’re allowed to substitute all 11.”
At a crucial moment, Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman exploited an unlikely opportunity — how often does a punt team take the field after an official’s timeout? — to gain an advantage for the Irish.
On a day rife with Georgia mistakes, it was but one more.
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